Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Concertone for 2 violins in C major, K.190, Gérard Poulet & Henryk Szeryng

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Concertone for 2 violins, oboe, cello & orchestra in C major, K. 190 (K. 186E) Gérard Poulet (violin), Henryk Szeryng (violin), Norman Jones (cello), Richard Morgan (oboe), New Philharmonia Orchestra, Sir Alexander Gibson (conductor) 1. Allegro Spiritoso – 0:00 2. Andantino Grazioso – 08:57 3. Tempo di Menuetto (Vivace) – 19:41 “There was a vogue in the middle of the last half of the eighteenth century for concertos featuring more than one soloist. Usually these were called by the name "sinfonia concertante," the term that Mozart himself employed elsewhere. But his earliest attempt at a multiple-soloist concerto was called a "concertone", which is simply the word "concerto" with an added suffix that in Italian denotes largeness. Here it means a concerto which has more than expected, namely, not only an official second violin solo part, but also frequent additions of two more solo parts (the principal cello and the first oboe) from the orchestra. This is Mozart's fourth entirely original concerto of any sort, written in Salzburg in 1774 (between the first and second violin concertos), and it highlights a period of rapid growth in his compositional imagination. It is not only the added solo parts that makes this a "large concerto"; Mozart uses a fairly full wind section of two oboes, two bassoons, two horns, and two trumpets, in addition to timpani. Much of the music sounds like that of his contemporaneous divertimenti. The music is elegant, with frequent ornamentation where later in his career Mozart might have opted for a telling simplicity. This is a tuneful, intriguing, and entertaining piece, more often heard on recordings (where it is often paired with one of the violin concertos or with the Sinfonia Concertante for Violin, Viola, and Orchestra, K. 364), than in the concert hall.” (from ALLMUSIC, by Joseph Stevenson)